Mass Effect 3 Ending - Chapter 1
by TemplarHighlord
Summary: The way Mass Effect 3 should have ended...


Mass Effect 3-Ending Fanfic

_Author's Note: This ending fanfic I have been working on in my head for a while. Its only recently that everything came together for it to plausibly work. I know it has been quite sometime since the whole movement against the original ending began and tapered off and it may be construed as too little, too late, but I have seen many other writers out there continuing theirs, so I thought that I might as well start this. Be warned, this fanfic is tailored to what I have decided in the game, so it will follow with events that I have chosen, characters on certain tangents and Shepard with a certain love interest. This is my first time writing anything since my college days, so bear with me if my writing isn't up on a professional par. So, without further ado, let it begin….._

_P.S. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome._

**Chapter 1-Anomaly and Drop**

**Deep Space, SSV Normandy, War Room, 19:37 hrs, Just after the events on Cronos Station**

Shepard put his left hand up to his face, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples using his thumb and forefinger. Looking over the total tally of the war assets he had accumulated over these past few months was taxing, but necessary. After a moment, he dropped his hand and focused his eyes on the numbers. It was heartening to see that the various races of the galaxy were co-operating and standing together, despite past grievances, such as the Krogan Rebellions, the Genophage, the First Contact war and the myriad of other skirmishes that had put them all at odds. The arrival of the Reapers and the looming threat of extinction that they posed was one hell of a way to force them all to co-operate. There were still some splinter groups, that had refused to join because of some of the decisions that he had made, but it was all done for the greater good of the galaxy, despite the selfish actions of those few. Shepard pushed those thoughts from his mind, to be dealt with later. Right now, he had far greater concerns, such as the holographic image of the weapon that was going through the final stages of construction right in front of him. The Crucible project had been a colossal undertaking, requiring more resources than was needed to craft even some of the mightiest cruisers and dreadnoughts combined. They were still shy one key component that Liara had described while going over the schematics recovered from the Prothean archives, the Catalyst. His brown eyes glanced over the location of where it now rested. The Citadel sat above Earth, surrounded by dozens of Reaper capital ships, destroyers and thousands of smaller support ships. Getting in there would be dicey at best, a slaughter at worst. He keyed up the latest recon images of the Reapers guarding the Citadel. He focused on one Reaper in particular. _Harbinger,_ he thought to himself, _fitting that you are right there, sitting at the one place where I can find you._ Shepards rage seethed, wanting above all, to see this particular Reaper wiped out of existence. From what he understood, Harbinger was the Reaper equivalent to a General/nominal leader. Wipe that bastard out and the whole Reaper command structure would likely crumble. The Prothean VI had warned that it was too late for Shepard to do anything about saving anyone and had suggested that they save what knowledge they can for the next cycle, but he refused to believe it. He was stubborn like that, refusing to believe that anything was impossible, no matter the odds. It was that iron clad resolve that had found him admitted to the N7 Marine Corps and later, becoming the first human SPECTER. It was a long road to get to where he was and he had sacrificed much, but he was willing to do what was necessary to get this done. His stomach growled at him, tugging at his insides, reminding him that a basic need was to be filled and fast, otherwise he'd have to risk its wrath. Deciding to comply with what his body was telling him for once, running his hand through his short brown hair, he left the War Room at a moderate pace and headed to the ships mess to get himself something to eat.

**SSV Normandy, Liara's Quarters, 19:51 hrs.**

With the data disseminating, Liara slowly sipped at the hot cup of jasmine tea while going over the final reports of the Crucibles construction on her datapad. She had to remember to thank Samantha Traynor for recommending this tea to her. It was pleasant; with nice mellow finish that left you feeling relaxed after each sip. She glanced over to Javik, who was busy reading the schematics that had been recovered from the Prothean archives. Javik, a real live Prothean, was nothing at all like Liara had imagined. Instead of being a wise, patient and nurturing species, they were harsh, demanding and unforgiving Imperialists, according to him. Still, the fact that he was still alive after 50,000 years was a miracle in itself. He considered it luck that his stasis pod was the only one out one million to survive for that long. Liara liked to believe that it was more than that. Though he had survived, what Javik knew about the Protheans was limited at best. He was a soldier, born during a time when the Reapers had already arrived and were exterminating his race. Pulling her thoughts back to the report in front of her, she studied it, happy that all that needed doing was some finishing touches on the Crucible before it was ready.

"Liara, I've found something odd."

Her head snapped up, and she found her gaze locked onto Javik's. His four yellow eyes glowed with an ominous presence, which she always found slightly unnerving. _Odd, he almost never calls me by my name except…_the thought trailed off as she looked at what he was pointing at.

"What is it?" Liara replied as she started to stand.

"A slight discrepancy in the way this was written," Javik pointed again at the screen he was studying. "Almost as though there is something else in this text other than what is there."

"I have viewed this a thousand times Javik. If there was anything that was there I would have…"

"Spotted it?" Javik finished for her. "You might be the foremost Prothean expert in this cycle, but you have no idea how Prothean sentence structure and grammar is supposed to be. I do."

He was speaking in that condescending tone to her again, but the bite was left out of it. Her woman's intuition was picking up on something, but she left it, focusing on what Javik was pointing out.

"What are you saying exactly?"

"I am saying that there is some sort of message hidden within these texts. It's a bit complex but I believe that I can crack it."

"How?", Liara asked, the archaeologist in her pricking up to the uncovered mystery.

"The way the structure is formed, it's archaic, an older form of our native language that has not been spoken in centuries, except by the scholars of my cycle." Javik continued. "If you structure it to the way Prothean was spoken in our final days, there are some additional letters hidden within each sentence."

He slowly arranged the sentence as he saw fit and after seeing the literal translation, there were some additional letters hidden within the sentence! Liara couldn't believe her eyes. Javik was right! There was something more to those schematics!

Javik went on, "The only problem is that there are thousands upon thousands of pages within this text. How long do we have to decode it?"

"Glyph?"

"Yes Doctor T'soni! How may I be of assistance?" the tiny information drone chirped.

**SSV Normandy, 22:17 hrs, Shepards Cabin**

Shepard was sitting in his chair, enjoying himself a mug of coffee when his intercom buzzed and lit up. It was Liara. _What's going on that she needs to talk to me right now?,_ he thought to himself as his eyebrows lowered. Grumbling to himself, he clicked the button and Liara's face popped up, looking flushed, flustered and excited. "Shepard, we've found something important, something that concerns the Crucible!"

"We? What do mean by we?" Shepard asked quizzically

"Javik and I were looking over the schematics and he spotted a discrepancy in the way it was written, something that I would never have spotted on my own," her voice hit a few octaves higher and her face was a deeper blue than usual. _She's never been this excited since the day she discovered that I had the Prothean vision burned into my mind._

"Should I assemble the whole team?" he asked

"Yes! This is something that everyone needs to hear!" Liara's voice was almost pleading

Eyebrows raised Shepard opened up the Normandy's intercom.

**SSV Normandy, Armory, 22:16 hrs**

James Vega never thought he'd find himself in this position. Being the prey in this was something entirely new to him. Being soldier, a rather large one at that, taught him to always be on his guard, to always mind his surroundings and to never let his enemy corner him. But those ice blue eyes held his gaze, preventing him from focusing on anything else.

"You're good James, but I'm better. Now I have you all to myself," that thick Australian accent purred huskily while her arms started to encircle his frame in a predatory fashion.

"Yeah, what makes you think that I don't have some sort of escape plan in place?" he countered with a smirk.

"I've read up your dossier. You never plan, you improvise"

"Oh? How's this for improvisation?" his eyes blazed as he tensed his muscles for a split second and launched himself into Miranda, forcing her back into the wall opposite to the one she had him pinned on. His move was so fast and surprising that Miranda hadn't had time to react, physically or with her biotics. Her ice blue eyes had widened almost to the size of teacups but the look on her face spoke of approval, almost as though she had hoped for this response. Now she was pinned between his arms and was at his mercy. Her lips parted and James leaned in….

"_All Normandy strike team members, report to the conference room immediately!" _Shepards voice broke out over the ships intercom.

"Damnit! So close…" James started balefully.

"I'm sure we can pick up where we left off," Miranda said with a smile as she ducked out of James' grip, while giving him a consoling pat on the cheek. She was sauntering over to the elevator and James nearly ran to catch her. No way was she riding the elevator without him as he caught her at the door.

**SSV Normandy, Conference Room, 22:20 hrs**

Shepard stood there waiting for the rest of his team members to file in. With everyone who was there, it was going to be a bit crowded. He saw James and Miranda come in at the same time. Odd since they were two distinctly different people but he waved his curiosity away. Tali and Garrus, walked in hand in hand, as did Gabby and Ken. He gave them cursory nods, smiling inwardly, glad that they had all found some happiness in this dark time. The crew filed in and took their respective places. Liara was already there, as was Ashley. Whilst no one was looking, he clasped her hand and gave it a squeeze and she squeezed back, smiling and looking at him from the corner of her eye. He allowed himself a small smile before speaking, now that everyone was assembled.

"I know everyone is on edge, after finding out the truth about the Crucible and the Citadel and how they are to work together to bring about the destruction of the Reapers. Apparently though, there is something that we have missed, something that apparently, only a Prothean could spot. Javik?" Shepard finished as he turned over the floor to their resident ancient.

"I was studying the plans for the Crucible when I noticed an oddity in the way that the schematics were worded." He brought up a page of the designs up on the holo-projector. "When read, they give the appearance that this is how the Prothean language was formed and structured. Liara did not note this discrepancy because she believed that this was the way that the various dialects of my people diverged. She was only half right. Some dialects did diverge in some way, but this one, is ancient Prothean, spoken only by the scholars of my people." Liara then jumped in, "Javik brought this oddity to my attention. So I asked myself, 'Why would they decide to do something like this, with plans for a weapon of such power?' I thought at first that it was the work of someone who was in a hurry or careless of what they wrote, but it made no logical sense to make such a mistake with a secret of this magnitud. So Javik then rearranged the sentence structure to the more modern version of Prothean and this was the result." He further demonstrated on the holo-projector and as it was rearranged, additional letters became apparent.

Miranda, always playing the devil's advocate, questioned, "That could just be gibberish, and no way could it mean anything."

Liara took the barb in stride and continued on, "I thought so too at first, until we continued on with more of the text." More of the page was rearranged the way Javik had done earlier and the additional letters began to form words. The words took on the shape of coherent sentences.

"A well disguised cipher. I doubt that this particular code would not have been spotted by anyone who was not Prothean," EDI chimed. "I doubt that even I would have spotted it."

"Even the experts were fooled, me being one of them," Liara admitted sulkily. "Regardless, we caught it and thanks to Glyph, we have managed to piece together the message hidden within the data."

"So, what does it say?" Shepard demanded vehemently, a slight look of excitement lighting up his face

"It's a small message, but it repeats throughout the whole data file and tagged with it is a set of co-ordinates. The message reads, 'Find us before your cycle is doomed.' I have cross checked the co-ordinates several dozen times with every known star map. This is where we need to go."

With a few keystrokes on the keypad built into the table, the holo-projector then flared out the images of the text and replaced them with a galactic map. The indicator then focused on the one area that no one anticipated. After a direct zoom in, the indicator homed in on its target and locked on, beeping as it rested on its destination.

James, being the brash one, spoke first, "How can that be the location? We were there just after Earth was hit!"

"Impossible! No way could we have missed anything on Mars!" Ashley announced after looking over the map.

"I know it may seem like, how do you humans say it, 'A wild geese chase?', but I am sure of this. One of the final reports that was filed just before the Reapers hit was that the initial survey of the Prothean ruins was off. That the ruins were far more extensive than the initial results had displayed. They were just putting in a request to excavate further when Cerberus showed up with weapons blazing," Liara finished.

"Any idea as to what we'll find there?" Shepard asked; his interest in the ruins on Mars clearly renewed.

"None. The message was very vague aside from the location, but the archive that we found in the ruins was simply the tip of the iceberg. At least that's what the surveyors believed," Liara continued

"Mars is not as heavily guarded as Earth is," Garrus said cautiously "But we can expect heavy resistance trying to land, not to mention what might already be on the ground."

"What's the matter Garrus?" James piped up. "Lose your nerve?"

"I'm just saying that this could go badly if we're not careful."

"Screw being careful," James put in. "These machines have had enough fun stomping around our homes making a royal mess of things! I say its time that we kick these _pindejo _hunks of metal so hard that they run back to their mommas whimpering like Quarians about a scratch! No offense meant Sparks."

"None taken," Tali said a bit acidly. "I do agree with James though. We need to stop hiding and playing shadow games. It's time that we step ahead of the Reapers for once!"

The rest of the crew voiced their assent. Shepard smiled, agreeing with every single one of them. He then called out, 'Joker, set a course for Mars and take us in as quiet as you can.'

"_Mars? Going sightseeing again Commander or did we miss something the first time we touched down?"_

"I'm thinking a little bit of both," Shepard said, while flexing his fingers and cracking his knuckles with a smile.

**SSV Normandy, Armory, 23:00 hrs.**

The entire team assembled in the armory, gearing up and selecting their choice weapons. Shepard hefted his modified M-76 Revenant. It was a heavy bastard of a rifle, but its ammo capacity and firing rate more than made up for its drawbacks. He looked over everyone, ensuring that they were fully geared up before mustering in front of him. Behind him, the elevator hissed open as it arrived on deck. He turned in time to see Miranda step out, in full body armor and walk over to the weapons bench.

"Miranda" Shepard called out, "What you doing here?" as he turned to face her.

"I'm coming with you sir. I already spoke with Doctor Chakwas and she has cleared me for duty," she finished with a stubborn look on her face.

Shepard was familiar with that look. It was that look that told him if he tried to stop her, she'd just defy him anyways to prove that she wasn't one to be pushed around or browbeaten into submission. She never came across as the type to follow orders, at least orders that didn't suit her manner of thinking. He looked at her, his expression asking her 'Why?'

For the briefest moment, her eyes flicked over behind him and to his left but Shepard didn't have to turn to know who she was looking at. _So that's why she insisted on coming along with us after Horizon. _He chuckled inwardly, thinking about how it was the crazy ass marine who finally melted the ice queen's heart.

Quickly, he spoke up, "Very well then Operative Lawson. Gear up and muster. You have 3 minutes."

Quicker than thought, Miranda chose her weapons, modded them, rammed the clips home and jogged to where the rest of Shepards team was waiting. She stood in between Ashley and EDI, taking care not to get too close to James. _Let him stare and drool_, she chuckled to herself.

"All right everyone, listen up," Shepard started. "Scans show us that there are no Reaper ships in orbit or on the ground, but there are plenty of ground forces left behind occupying the Prothean Ruins."

They all nodded, knowing that they lucked out only having no Reapers lying around to deal with. Shepard opened up his omni-tool to display the layout of the Martian terrain. He keyed up specific points in where each team would be starting out for the mission.

"We're all heading in hot and heavy, but a full frontal assault will draw too much attention. We'll be splitting up into three teams. Garrus, you and Liara will lead the two distraction teams, to keep the forces on the ground busy," Shepard indicated the main vector on the ground from which the respective teams would commence their attack.

"Javik, Ashley and I will be making our way into the facility, where hopefully we'll encounter little to no resistance," Shepard said as he used his omni tool to display a map showing the insertion point of his team, right by the base of the ruins, near the dig site.

"Just like old times on Virmire," Garrus interjected.

Shepard nodded to Garrus with a small smile and continued, "Unlike Virmire, we will all rendezvous inside the Ruins. You guys will need to create some sort of ruckus to cover your tracks. I don't want those machines following us in."

At this, James rubbed his hands together and spoke with an almost childish delight, "Want me to create some mayhem Commander?"

"The more the better James! I'm sure between you and Garrus, you'll cook up something tasty for the Reapers to chow on," said the Commander.

"You can count on that _Loco_!"

"Now we'll see who's the better soldier James!" Garrus said with a wink.

"Boys, compare egos and equipment later. Focus on the mission!" said Ashley with a grimace.

Shaking his head while smiling, Shepard called out, "Joker, what's our ETA?"

"_Seven minutes out from drop point one Commander. You sure about how you want this played?" _ Flight Lieutenant Moreau said nervously over the intercom.

"Damn straight I am! Let's get in there and hit them hard!"

"_Aye aye, Commander!"_


End file.
